Tension Overhead Electrification (Pty) Ltd trading as Tractionel Enterprise was registered on 15 November 1982 and started trading in the same year.

The object in establishing Tractionel Enterprise was to concentrate on railway traction electrification projects for private siding owners as all the companies in the traction electrification field at that time were involved in major contracts for the South African Railways and could not service the private siding market.

The South African Railway’s electrification program basically came to an end in the mid eighties with all the major railway lines being electrified.  Our opposition found themselves in the unfortunate position where they could no longer sustain their railway electrification divisions, which lead to the withdrawal of some of the companies from the South African market and the closing of the railway electrification divisions of others.

Tractionel Enterprise was also affected by the saturation of the railway electrification market but made a strategic decision to diversify into overhead transmission line and township electrification projects.  Tractionel Enterprise  however retained our skilled and experienced railway electrification personnel and by carrying stock of railway electrification material was able to maintain a service to our clients.

This decision paid dividends in the years that followed as Tractionel Enterprise  was, and still is, one of a select few companies in Southern Africa that can take on railway electrification projects on a profitable basis, as we posses managerial, constructional and turnkey development skills.

As of late, we have noticed a trend whereby our opposition, who obtained railway electrification projects through their subsidiaries, is sub-contracting their projects to Tractionel Enterprise and thereby strengthening our basis even further.

Tractionel Enterprise has been involved in railway electrification projects on a continuous basis for more than two decades, a record which no other local privately owned company can lay claim to, and pride ourselves in being awarded the electrification of the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link for Bombela.